Polling GSoM: Based on their stats Guard A or Guard B?
by Atma Brother ONE on May 30, 2009 10:28 AM PDT
in Polling GSoM
43 comments
It's time for another blind taste test. For today's edition we'll be looking at two different guards in the association. Both swapped teams this past season. Neither puts up superstar numbers, yet one of the guards is billed as a savior and in my book over-hyped like Darko Milicic pre-2004 NBA Draft.
Guard A in the 2008-2009 NBA Regular Season
- 35.3 minutes
- 17.7 ppg (41.8% FG, 40.8% 3pt, 91.3% FT)
- 6.4 apg : 2.2 to
- 3.0 rbg (0.4 orb, 2.6 drb)
- 1.2 steals
- 0.2 blocks
- 38.1 minutes
- 19.7 ppg (41.0% FG, 36.0% 3pt, 87.2% FT)
- 4.4 apg : 2.3 to
- 3.0 rpg (0.4 orb, 2.6 drb)
- 0.9 steals
- 0.2 blocks
Guard A is the Denver Nuggets Chauncey Billups
Even though he's boring to watch, he does win games.
Guard B is the Golden State Warriors Jamal Crawford
No D and ZERO trips to the playoffs, but 100x more fun to watch. (Inside the Warriors)
There's no question who's the better player between the two guards. It's easily Billups because of Crawford's poor defense. As we all remember Crawford unceremoniously took home the 2008-2009 WDWY. However, isn't it amazing how a guy who has gotten so much credit for the Denver Nuggets recent run has about the same rebounding rate (3.0 per 36 for Billups vs. 2.8 per 36 for JC) and overall FG% in addition to many fairly similar numbers across to a player who has never even sniffed the playoffs?
To tell you the truth I've never understood why Billups get so much credit. Take a look at his career stats on Basketball Reference. He's definitely made some nice contributions to some nice teams over the past 7 years and even managed to pick up a Finals MVP trophy (easily the worst player to ever do so). But there's nothing about his numbers even during that Pistons run that screams superstar or savior. He only shot above 43% from the field twice during his 6 years in Detroit and actually shot a pretty dismal 39.4% from the field in 2003-2004. It wasn't until his last 3 years with the Pistons that he finally topped 6 assists per game. There's nothing superstar about those stats.
Don't get me wrong. If I couldn't have Chris Paul, Deron Williams, pre-Clipped Baron Davis, Rajon Rondo, Tony Parker, or rookie of the year Derrick Rose, I'd gladly take Billups. Even though he might be the most boring winning "star" in the league to watch, he's a very solid option. His defense has been reputable as well. But that's not the point here.
Am I crazy for thinking Billups got way too much credit for the Nuggets recent impressive run in the Wild Wild West and is an overrated player in general?
Why do I have this crazy paranoia that our friends over at Pickaxe and Roll are going to hit me in the head with a golden nugget for even bringing up this topic? Seriously though I know the end result was tough, but that was a great run Denver.
0 recs |
43 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
its
either because AI left or becasue Billups arrived.
A combination of both imo. Without AI to chuck up shots they share the ball.
Billups provides the veteran leadership. Everyone says so.
by saintdee on May 30, 2009 10:38 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
I'm not sure I buy that
A combination of both imo. Without AI to chuck up shots they share the ball.
Last year AI shot 45.8% from the field in Denver. This year Billups shot 42.0% with the Nuggets. If anything you want Iverson shooting more and Billups shooting less.
In terms of sharing the rock. Guess who put up more dimes with the Nuggets- Iverson last season and Billups this season?
Obviously Billups right?
NO.
Iverson dropped 7.2 assists per game and Billups put up 6.4. Now if you take into consideration minutes and turnover rate, that’s really not that big of a difference. But I’m scratching my head wondering why everyone’s saying “Billups shares the ball so much more”. Assists aren’t everything of course, but I think it’s a pretty good metric of how much a guy shares the ball effectively, especially for your primary ball handlers.
I’ll have to look at the numbers, but I think Billups is a big defensive upgrade over Iverson and that’s major factor in the improvement. But I think the #1 reason is Nene Hilario. Last season he only played 16 games and put up 5-5 (yes 5 points and 5 rebounds). This season he played 77 games and put up 14.6 ppg (60% shooting) and nearly 8 boards. Nene is a BEAST. JR Smith also made a nice step forward this season.
by Atma Brother ONE on May 30, 2009 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
adding billups was a culture change more than anything else. it said “let’s play defense and stop running iso plays”. as far as the sharing the ball stuff, billups, even if not putting up the assist numbers, is willing to step back and run the offense and tell melo to get his. that’s less likely to happen when ai is your primary facilitator. you can’t underestimate how important that’s been for melo’s development.
there’s a lot of little things that billups brings to the table that don’t show up on a basic stat sheet (one of the reasons i don’t generally vote in these polls, but do love to talk about them) and there’s zero chance that denver would undo the iverson trade if given the chance. if that trade doesn’t happen, denver is a first round out again, if they make the playoffs at all. i don’t think that billups is going to lead a team to a title ever again (and that detroit title was more than a little fluke-y), but he’s a very nice piece to have on your team and if he’s your second best player, you probably have a decent shot to win a championship.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
by cap'n hack on May 30, 2009 10:59 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
"Let's Play D"
So let’s look at the Defense Rating (estimate of points allowed per 100 possessions) via Basketball Reference for the Nuggets
- 2007-2008 Denver Nuggets (with Iverson): 106.3
- 2008-2009 Denver Nuggets (with Billups): 106.8
I’m not sure what to make of that, but it really makes you wonder about the magical effect Billups has on the Denver defense and “changing the culture”.
The Nuggets were 4 games better this season compared to the year before. That’s an improvement but with how close the games can get in this league, that could be just a few bounces of the ball. (Like the 48 win Warriors who won so many games by a tiny margin.)
This is what really makes me wonder about the Nuggets recent run and all the credit Billups has received.
This year the Nuggets beat up a banged up Hornets team in the first round and easily beat a solid Mavs team (thanks to a Game 3 whistle and Melo 3). But then they lost to the Lakers in 6.
Last year the Nuggets got swept in the first round of the playoffs by guess who?
The LA Lakers.
Could it be that the Nuggets just got lucky this season and didn’t have to face off against the Lakers until the final round? Are they really that much better than the year before?
I’m not so sure they are.
by Atma Brother ONE on May 30, 2009 11:30 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
+1
I like this. A very good possibility is that Denver did not improve this year. Their expected record based on either points scored vs points surrendered (various versions of the “pythagorean W-L”) suggested that they were ever so slightly better last year and this year, they just got lucky winning a few more close games. Chance, things like facing opponents when they have a key guy out, getting the calls to go your way, etc, can result in a 4 extra wins over 82 game without the team really being any better.
by jae on May 30, 2009 11:39 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
interesting stuff. this is what happens when i don’t actually bother to look up the defensive ratings before talking about it.
and i’m with you that their route to the western finals was pretty easy. out of any of the teams out west, they would have had the easiest path possible. only needing to take on the hornets who were dealing with lots of injuries and not actually interested in competing and then the winner of the mavs/spurs series, two teams who you had to think denver would have been excited to play as opposed to the rockets (before yao’s injury) or blazers is a pretty sizeable advantage.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
by cap'n hack on May 30, 2009 11:56 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
although, there is one thing that i forgot to mention that, while possibly small and definitely speculative, might be really important with the chauncey addition. last season, that nuggets team seemed to hate each other. i remember thinking that they were the most likely candidate for a practice facility brawl. since chauncey arrived (and as the wins piled up, something very important to note), they’ve looked much more like a real team. how much impact chemistry has is debateable, but without that trade, they seemed to have “implosion coming” written all over them.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
by cap'n hack on May 30, 2009 12:18 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Nice post Atma...
I honestly didn’t look at any of the defensive numbers because I was so sure that they were playing better defense by what I was seeing on the court. I have to say I’m pretty surprised by the numbers. Could it really be that they seem to be expending so much more effort on defense without actually being a better defensive team? I guess that could be the case. I think I’m going to look into this a little further when I have some time because this is pretty interesting stuff.
I do think that it’s fair to say that the team that met and competed with the Lakers in the WCF is better team than the one that was swept by an arguably worse Lakers team the year before. BUT I think you may be right that the improvement has been exaggerated by luck.
Thing 2
by olympicmike on May 30, 2009 12:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
A couple more thoughts...
just because I can’t sleep. The more I think about this the more it starts to make sense. I think we have been overlooking the loss of Camby. He was the defensive anchor last season (the only guy playing quality defense and rebounding for stretches) and had a very big impact on the game. Nene and Birdman have done a nice job this year but there has still been a drop off in rebounding and shot blocking from the center spot.
‘07-’08 defensive rebounds: 2698
‘08-’09 defensive rebounds: 2507
‘07-’08 blocks: 551
‘08-’09 blocks: 491
I think it’s likely that Billups helped the overall defense of the team just about as much as losing Camby hurt it. I think it’s possible that the perimeter defense improved and the interior defense took a bit of a hit. That would account for the numbers and still jibe with what I actually saw when I watched the team play. What do you guys think?
Thing 2
by olympicmike on May 31, 2009 1:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
better
if the AI trade was midseason, wouldn’t that mitigate the conclusions drawn from the ppg comparison? wouldn’t it be more accurate just to use the post-trade numbers? (if the trade was at the beginning of the season, write that question off to early alzheimers)
all in all, I’m not so impressed with the 4 game regular season improvement as I am the demeanor and effectiveness in this year’s Nugget playoffs – last season they were a whiny, selfish combination of talents while this season the ball flowed, they played with confidence and vigor and played as a team. They were clearly better this playoff than last.
by hardcore on May 31, 2009 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Indeed -
They are a better team this year. Yeah, the end result (losing to the Lakers) is similar. But this year they put a scare into the Lakers, who are, incidentally, better than they were last year. And they won some playoff games to get there, too, which seems unlikely to have happened last year.
by Ronaldinho on May 31, 2009 4:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Iverson had what I think was the best year of his career a year ago in Denver. While his FG% was higher than what Billups shot this year, the improved accuracy from behind the arc made Billups the more effecient scorer. On the basis of points per shot, you do not want Billups shooting less.
Several things went into Denver’s improvement. I don’t think that the Billups upgrade (though I do consider it an upgrade) over Iverson was all of it, but it was part of it. Being able to get not just quality minutes, but very, very good minutes from Nene and the Birdman more than compensated for the loss of Camby too.
by jae on May 30, 2009 11:01 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Or should I say “several things went into Denver’s possible improvement”. In reality, there wasn’t much difference between the 0708 and 0809 versions.
by jae on May 30, 2009 11:40 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Another oddity
The common thought is that Billups made his Nuggets teammates so much better because he’s a much “truer PG” than Iverson.
But check out how their superstar Carmelo Anthony did with AI vs. Billups.
2007-2008 (with Iverson): 25.7 ppg on 49.2% FG
2008-2009 (with Billups): 22.8 ppg on 44.3% FG
by Atma Brother ONE on May 30, 2009 11:01 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Here's my question for Atma:
If Alan Iverson is so great, and Billups so overrated, why did swapping the two of them improve Denver significantly while making Detroit so much worse?
by Ronaldinho on May 30, 2009 10:40 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
The difference in raw FG% and 3pt percentage isn’t huge, but Billups had the better 3 pt percentage and took more 3’s as a percentage of his total shots fired. Combine that with a better (not huge, but better) ability to get to the line and a better (not huge but better) rate of conversion when he got there and you have the difference between a guy who had arguably his best season scoring (Crawford) and hit about the average scoriing efficiency vs. a guy who was near the top of guards in the league (8th best of qualified guards). Billups was a bit better in all aspects. A bit better across the board adds up to real differences. Add in a couple of extra assists (the area where there is the clearest difference) and you’ve got a real significant difference before including unmeasured defense.
I do think the numbers indicate though that the margins of performance that differentiates players in the league can be mighty slim, such that the difference between being somewhat better and somewhat worse across the board is the difference between winning and losing.
by jae on May 30, 2009 10:57 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Player A, A, A, a thousand times A.
I said to myself, “why is this even a comparison?” before glancing at who the players were. 6.5 dimes per 36 minutes versus 4.2? That’s not even the same ballpark.
Based on experience, Atma Bro, I figured you were trying to make someone on the Warriors look overrated (a la Biedrins v. Gortat); in fact you were doing just the opposite. Damn you and your mad crossover!!!
A couple other numbers to throw into the mix:
FTA per 36: Billups 5.8, Craw 5.0
True Shooting%: Billups .592, Craw .545
Roland rating: Billups +4.2, Craw -0.9
It’s possible Billups is a tad overrated — though I think his toughness, experience, and floor management skills are special — but he’s in a totally different class from Craw. Billups v. a healthy Baron … now that’s a fair comparison.
Then again, my whole trust in numbers is shot to heck since I saw Dave Berri’s rating of the best NBA players at each position for ’08/09, in terms of wins produced:
C Dwight Howard
PF Troy Murphy
SF LeBron James
SG Dwyane Wade
PG Chris Paul
One of these things is not like other... :-O
Thing 1
by Sleepy Freud on May 30, 2009 11:02 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
OH MY GOD
Did you make a clerical mistake with that PF listing?
by Atma Brother ONE on May 30, 2009 11:03 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
that troy murphy listing made me stop citing wages of wins until i had a better grasp on how it worked. if i’m so far off from understanding a metric, i don’t like to use it, and there’s obviously lots i don’t understand about a metric that lists troy murphy as the best pf in the nba.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
by cap'n hack on May 30, 2009 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
The Troy Murphy conundrum is my biggest problem with Berri’s metric, which otherwise seems to be very good and provides enough predictive power that you can get reliable returns on your betting dollar paying attention to nothing else. The problem with the metric is that there are two cases where it can provide extremely unreliable reports of a player’s impact. One is that it can dramatically overrate very bad post defenders and it can dramatically underrate very good perimeter defenders. (Bruce Bowen usually gets poor marks by ’wins produced as a result.
The problem is with an aspect of the metric for ‘team defense’ that, for lack of data to assign it otherwise, splits all categories that cannot be directly attributed to one player (like opponent FG%) and assigns equal parts to all players on the court. The poor post defender doesn’t look as bad by the metric just so long as he gets rebounds on all the cases where someone didn’t just blow by him for a bucket. He is only penalized for one 5th of this even if (as was often the case with Troy) it’s 99% his fault An opponent will still miss enough to give him opportunities to grab boards, something the metric rewards. The great perimeter defender who forces bad shots, but doesn’t get rebounds himself, is not directly rewarded for this either.
Murphy’s numbers this year were superb. I think he actually is playing much, much better than he ever did while he was here. But his defensive performance is still terrible and the team numbers indicate this. His offense was finally good enough (and perhaps his D went from about the worst to just really, really bad) such that his effect on the Pacers was ever so slightly positive, something that hadn’t been true of him with either the Warriors or the Pacers for quite some time.
by jae on May 30, 2009 11:27 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Haha
No metric is perfect.
Thing 2
by olympicmike on May 30, 2009 11:22 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Player A all the way
Is it a little sad that I easily recognized Crawford from his stats?
Seriously though, player A has much better numbers and that’s not even taking into account the fact that he changed the entire defensive culture of his team and propelled them to the WCF. Leadership on the defensive end seems to be hard to pick up on the stat sheet but it makes a difference in the win column.
Thing 2
by olympicmike on May 30, 2009 11:14 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Since it was based on statistics, I went with “Player A” because of more assists, more steals and less turnovers. For a second there, I thought “Player B” was Monta Ellis, though.
The Ultimate Opportunist
by Rated-R Superstar on May 30, 2009 12:01 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
+1
i knew billups was the “savior” and thought player b was monta until i looked at the 3pt%, then i was stumped.
by dubsfan510 on May 30, 2009 4:16 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
lets compare Jamal to some higher paid pg and guards around the nba
pts fg% 3pt FT% apg rpg stl blk TO salary
M Bibby 14.9 .435 .390 78.9 5.0 3.5 1.24 .14 1.62 14,983,603
J Kidd 9 .416 .406 .809 8.7 6.2 1.98 .48 2.28 21,372,000
A Miller 16.3 .473 .283 .826 6.5 4.5 1.33 .17 2.43 10,333,334
J Johnson 21.4 .437 .360 .826 5.9 3.6 1.06 .24 2.47 14,232,567
K Hinrick 9.9 .437 .408 .791 3.9 3.4 1.29 .37 2.28 10,000,000
A.I 17.5 .417 .283 .781 5.0 3.0 1.54 .11 2.56 20,840,625
T Mcgrady 15.6 .388 .376 .801 5.0 4.4 1.20 .43 1.97 20,370,437
V Carter 20.8 .437 .385 .817 4.7 5.1 1.03 .48 2.08 14,724,125
just some players who make more then 2mil more then jamal and how they faired
by Warriorfan on May 30, 2009 4:19 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
per game stats are generally pretty useless without giving the minutes played, but i can tell you that if we had been offered any of those guys for jamal at the trade deadline (rules about trades and salaries notwithstanding), we’d have been fools to turn them down. that includes iverson, who was hurt all year. at least we’d be rid of jamal’s contract that way.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
by cap'n hack on May 30, 2009 4:34 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
another (missing) variable
the overall productivity on either offense or defense is affected by more than the AI trade – keep in mind Nene played more this year … there’s more than one denominator to factor into the equation, let’s not oversimplify things by focusing on one position, albeit an important one and ignore the other changes …
by hardcore on May 30, 2009 10:59 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Even if we just assume that Denver got luckier this year ...
… and isn’t actually any better at all, they gave up, according to Atma’s well-documented feelings on the matter, one of the best players of all time, a guy who, even not at the top of his game, is a franchise-level player.
And got back a player he views as “overrated.” Shouldn’t that have a significant NEGATIVE impact on the team? And shouldn’t trading away an overrated player and getting a franchise scorer make Detroit a lot better?
If all you can say is “well, Denver isn’t really much better, and some of that improvement came form other areas” that’s still a pretty solid nail in the coffin of Iverson as a franchise player.
I actually think the key to Atma’s complaints about Billups – and, actually, it explains a lot of his player evaluations, is this quote:
“He might be the most boring winning “star” in the league to watch."
And Crawford, as we know, is an exciting player. Detroit, when they won their most recent titles, were a “boring” team. And Iverson, even if he’s shooting your team into the lottery, is an exciting player.
But excitement has nothing to do with wins. Last-second desperation shots are exciting – but they rarely help you win in the long term. Solid defense resulting in a low-percentage shot is not exciting, but it helps you win. Gambling for a turnover (and giving up an easy basket if you miss) IS exciting, but, as anybody who’s actually played a sport (any sport, not just basketball) at an organized level knows, it doesn’t help you win in the long run.
So of course you’d be a fan of Iverson (going 1-on-3 is exciting!) and not of Billups (ball control, working the ball to the right player to take the shot isn’t).
But that’s a very dumb organizing principle for a basketball team.
by Ronaldinho on May 31, 2009 9:57 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
wasn't inferring luck per se
I think your reply is more to AB1 than me, and you and I agree more than disagree based upon what I can readhere … see fanpost at right for more about how the Denver situation is both more complicated than just the AI trade, and how it might be instructive to us – >
by hardcore on May 31, 2009 1:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
A few stats from Hollinger to add additional context to the Iverson/Chauncey debate:
Iverson ‘07-’08
True shooting % – 56.7
Hollinger’s usage stat – 25.4
Chauncey ‘08-’09
True shooting % – 59.2
Hollinger’s usage stat – 21.3
I’m not sure the exact meaning/formula of his usage stat, but comparing the two you can see Iverson had a higher usage, which means his assists, rebounds, points, etc. will be inflated somewhat compared to Chauncey. That will be true both in overall numbers and their numbers at a standardized rate (per 36 minutes, per 40 minutes). For what it’s worth, Iverson did have a higher PER than Chauncey.
by Missing Barry on May 31, 2009 9:58 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Well maybe rebounds won’t be affected by the usage rate, but points and assists will be, at least.
by Missing Barry on May 31, 2009 10:06 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Usage is an estimated percent of plays where the player was directly involved in an offensive attempt, either by shooting, getting fouled, or dishing out an assist or turning the ball over. Shooting is considered higher “usage” than passing. It’s a reasonable indication of how much control of the ball a particular player has in the average possession for his team. Usage does imply that the player made good use of the play however, so it doesn’t necessarily “inflate” anything. You can have high usage by turning the ball over and missing shots. Usage does not consider nor have any influence on rebounds.
PER, once again, is a metric that rewards low percentage, high volume shooters, even if they are shooting well below average. A player can increase his PER so long as he shoots better than about 33% from the field, which means he can increase his PER while hurting his team. As a rough guide it usually sorts out the good from not good players, but a straight comparison of PER between two players isn’t meaningful in many, many cases.
by jae on May 31, 2009 11:52 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
So it sounds to me like the usage stat kind of works both ways – a higher usage should mean more opportunities for assists (and turnovers and shots), but at the same time every time a player gets an assist it increases their usage. So it seems to me like the usage stat really doesn’t give us all that much information in this situation, then. Do you agree/disagree? The TS% does give us an indication that every shot Chauncey took helped his team win more than every shot Iverson took, though.
by Missing Barry on May 31, 2009 1:03 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Some people think the world of ‘usage’, others not so much. I’m of mixed opinion. It’s somewhat informative, but requires some subjective context.
Usage is a measure of what happened much more than of what opportunites there were. In every possession someone gets credit for usage, even if it’s just someone who gets the inbound ball and drops it off his foot. TS% gives an indication of how effective a player was when provided with an opportunity to shoot.
Chauncey’s shots were more effective than Iverson’s.
Usage is a measure of opportunity. TS% is a measure of how those opportunities were used.
by jae on May 31, 2009 10:42 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Usage is essentially about how much of a ball-hog you are - and the flaw in "PER"
It’s based on attempts, not makes. So what the stats you posted show that Iverson takes more attempts, and shoots a lower percentage … in other words, he’s a worse player!
THe problem with PER is that it rewards you for taking shots so long as you hit 30.4% of them – which makes it a horrible stat. If you make 31% of your two-point shots, and shoot 20 times a game, I think everyone would admit that you are not helping your team win … but PER would rank you as a very good player. (The reason we don’t see such a think is that no player who shot that much at that low of a percetnage would stay on the floor to continue to be able to shoot that much!) (Actually, according to PER, you are helping your team win if you hit 21% of your 3-point shots!)
There’s a good discussion (and the source for those numbers) is here:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/a-comment-on-the-player-efficiency-rating/
by Ronaldinho on May 31, 2009 10:13 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
stats aren't everything
“Am I crazy for thinking Billups got way too much credit for the Nuggets recent impressive run in the Wild Wild West and is an overrated player in general?”
Yeah, pretty much…
Stats aren’t everything and don’t tell the whole story. Billups brings so many intangibles, leadership qualities, and a winning attitude. His record speaks for itself. When you have a player who just knows how to play, the ins and outs, and is pretty much another coach on the floor who elevates the play of others around him, I don’t know how you can call him overrated or compare him to the likes of Jamal Crawford.
by RowellMustGo on May 31, 2009 2:38 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Stats aren’t everything and don’t tell the whole story.
No, but they tell a whole lot of the story.
by jae on May 31, 2009 10:43 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I’ve learned that reporters care more about stats, people who never played basketball care more about stats because that’s more or less all they have to go off of. People who’ve played the game, understand that certain players win the game with their mind. These type of players see the court more, no when to do things, make the game easier for their teammates, and lead. Those things can’t be measured by ‘stats.’
by RowellMustGo on May 31, 2009 2:42 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
I’ve learned that reporters don’t actually understand stats. Most players don’t either. I’ve also learned that most people who are critical of stats don’t understand them well enough to be critical, but find it easier to say that only people who play the game really understand it, a critique that in itself is totally meaningless and not possible to address regardless of whether it is or is not true.
Many things that you claim cannot be measured by “stats” can, and are measured.
by jae on May 31, 2009 10:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
+1
I’ve also learned that most people who are critical of stats don’t understand them well enough to be critical, but find it easier to say that only people who play the game really understand it, a critique that in itself is totally meaningless and not possible to address regardless of whether it is or is not true.
You know unfortunately I’ve found that to extend in the work world as well. I’ve been trained as both a quantitative and qualitative researcher and it’s just said to see either school just flat out dismiss each other with blanket statements.
JAE speaks the truth.
by Atma Brother ONE on May 31, 2009 10:55 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Golden State Of Mind
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
